Every week, the folks at InVision send a roundup of their best blog content, their favorite design links from the week, and a new opportunity to win a free t-shirt. (Seriously. They give away a new design every week.) They also sometimes have fun survey questions where they crowdsource for their blog. This week's, for example, asked subscribers what they would do if the internet didn't exist.
A web-based interface is often available to allow people to subscribe, unsubscribe, and change their preferences. However, mailing list servers existed long before the World Wide Web,[1] so most also accept commands over email to a special email address. This allows subscribers (or those who want to be subscribers) to perform such tasks as subscribing and unsubscribing, temporarily halting the sending of messages to them, or changing available preferences - all via email. The common format for sending these commands is to send an email that contains simply the command followed by the name of the electronic mailing list the command pertains to. Examples: subscribe anylist or subscribe anylist John Doe.
But before any of you young guns scoff and discount the idea of a mail marketing campaign, you might want to read through this blog entry. Direct mail, while certainly a dinosaur in the world of marketing, can still be a powerful weapon in your arsenal – if it’s done correctly and intelligently, of course. We’ll lay out a few broad tips for you to consider if carrying out a direct mail campaign. While we would still urge the majority of business owners toward a more electronic/Internet based marketing strategy, you can still get solid results from direct mail.
Does the difference in these terms and their definitions matter? No, of course not, it's semantics! But it is interesting to see how the scope of Internet marketing vs Digital marketing has changed over time. In my books, when discussing alternative definitions, I explain that, no it doesn't really matter, but the scope and responsibility is important to make the most of managing the opportunities. So the scope of digital marketing activities should be agreed within a business and/or between a company and its agencies. The biggest difference is whether digital marketing is simply seen as about communications (online marketing) or whether it is broader, looking at underpinning marketing technology and options for new online business and revenue models.
Chaffey developed a more in depth definition for “digital marketing” at the end of his article with SmartInsights.com. Digital marketing means utilizing digital hardware – such as PCs, mobile phones, digital TV – to market a product via online communication mediums like websites, search engines, blogs and instant messaging in order to attain new customers and retain existing clientele. Executing a marketing campaign in this way allows for direct interaction with your clientele; this will make your clients feel valued and listened to, which will encourage customer loyalty.
When writing this guide, we reached out to the marketer community to collect case studies and learnings about creative marketing strategies. Most of these examples are included throughout the guide, but some didn’t quite fit. So we included those loose ends here, from the perspective of four awesome marketers. What better way to wrap up this guide than with you, our community?
E-marketing can offer more competitive prices than traditional marketing because e-marketing reduces costs by not having to maintain physical store space and by strategically placing distribution centers throughout the country. Second, because the Internet is available 24/7, e-marketing enables shoppers to search for product/service information and buy goods at their convenience, not just when the store is open. Third, research indicates that the cost of Internet-based promotion is one-fourth of traditional promotion, because it does not incur the costs of paper, printing, handling, and mailing. Fourth, e-marketing enables buyers to custom-build products such as shoes, clothes, computers, and automobiles on the Web, options often not available in stores.
So, building up lists of emails is a task you must put some effort behind in order to kick your email marketing efforts into gear. The problem is nobody really wants more email, particularly spam from unknown sources. When I talk about buying email lists, I’m am not talking about buying or renting so called opt-in lists from list brokers. I’m talking about offering something of value as a way to motivate someone to willingly exchange their email address with you in order to receive your offers and additional contact.
Choose an email blasting software or website. To send your email blast, you'll need to do research on popular email blast websites and choose one that works for your team. Consider the amount of training that would be required, if it automatically links to your current database or CRM, how much it costs, and how easy it is to use. Write down pros and cons of each provider and determine the blasting software that's right for you.
If you say, “I want to see what type of response I get from my first email before I send more”, it’s not going to work. Email marketing is marketing, not magic. You wouldn’t expect to get a great return on playing a radio ad or running a TV spot just once. Don’t expect a great return from sending just one email. Tell yourself you’re going to test the effectiveness of email marketing for a period of time (a full year is a reasonable amount of time). Remember that customers will open emails differently depending on the time of year and even the time of day that your email is sent. To get as many customers as possible to open your emails, you need to commit to sending emails over a period of time.
The books I've written have actually had three different titles, updated to move with the times. My first text book was titled: Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. I then created E-business E-commerce Management and, with PR Smith, E-marketing Excellence, for professionals a couple of years later. Then, much later, the names switched and in 2012 we renamed the Internet Marketing book to Digital Marketing with the others becoming Digital Business and Digital Marketing Excellence. About time too, since I was involved in developing the syllabus as an examiner for the first IDM Diploma in Digital Marketing back in 2004-5 when the term was hardly used at all - so it's been great to see 'Digital Marketing' adopted as the 'de facto' term, when I was first involved in defining it with the IDM students in 2004!
So what is an email newsletter anyway? An email newsletter is very much the same thing as a traditional newsletter, the only difference is that it is transmitted to the consumer through the use of email. The business obtains a list of potential consumers that may be interested in their service, they create a newsletter for that group, and then they send the mass email out to all of these people.
Ensure your email list is comprised of contacts whom have either opted in or whom you have a strong working relationship with. If you don’t have a list like this, focus on building one before you start sending anything out. Quality email address are more important than the quantity of them. If you’re not sure if you have a good list, check out our blog post: Answers to Frequently Asked Email List Questions.
Internet service providers (GMail, Yahoo, etc.) and anti-spam organizations create the spam traps to prevent spam from reaching people’s inboxes. The important thing for everyone to remember is if you use a purchased list, you are technically spamming the people on that list. Spam is unsolicited email and those people did not request your information.
A/B testing is trying two different techniques that communicate the same message on a small percentage of your list, seeing whether A or B performed the best, then using the better performing option when you email the rest of the list. It sounds complicated, but there are plenty of email marketing solutions out there that take all the math and guesswork out of it. (All you have to do is come up with the option A and option B you want to try.)
For Campaign Monitor customers, you can either manually upload an existing list (from an Excel file for instance) or you can connect your Campaign Monitor account to the tool where your customer data lives (such as your CRM, accounting, eCommerce tool, and hundreds of others) and automatically sync your customer information into your Campaign Monitor account.
Blast email and other forms of email marketing have grown increasingly popular for businesses, due to the relatively low cost and easy tracking abilities involved. In most cases, individuals must opt-in, or subscribe, to an email list to receive blast email from a particular company. Newsletters, for example, are a common form of email marketing. The company, in turn, must create and manage a large mailing list that identifies all the individuals who have subscribed to the email marketing service. Depending on the size of the company and the amount of recipients, managing this list can be quite daunting. As a result, most companies hire a third-party vendor or use software to manage mailing lists.
Short for e lectronic mail , the transmission of messages over communications networks . The messages can be notes entered from the keyboard or electronic files stored on disk . Most mainframes , minicomputers , and computer networks have an e-mail system . Some electronic-mail systems are confined to a single computer system or network, but others have gateways to other computer systems, enabling users to send electronic mail anywhere in the world. Companies that are fully computerized make extensive use of e-mail because it is fast, flexible, and reliable.. Most e-mail systems include a rudimentary text editor for composing messages, but many allow you to edit your messages using any editor you want. You then send the message to the recipient by specifying the recipient's address. You can also send the same message to several users at once. This is called broadcasting .. Sent messages are stored in electronic mailboxes until the recipient fetches them. To see if you have any mail, you may have to check your electronic mailbox periodically, although many systems alert you when mail is received. After reading your mail, you can store it in a text file , forward it to other users, or delete it. Copies of memos can be printed out on a printer if you want a paper copy .. All online services and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer e-mail, and most also support gateways so that you can exchange mail with users of other systems. Usually, it takes only a few seconds or minutes for mail to arrive at its destination. This is a particularly effective way to communicate with a group because you can broadcast a message or document to everyone in the group at once.. Although different e-mail systems use different formats , there are some emerging standards that are making it possible for users on all systems to exchange messages. In the PC world, an important e-mail standard is MAPI . The CCITT standards organization has developed the X.400 standard, which attempts to provide a universal way of addressing messages. To date, though, the de facto addressing standard is the one used by the Internet system because almost all e-mail systems have an Internet gateway.. Another common spelling for e-mail is email .. Also see Why E-Mails Bounce and Getting Rid of Spam in the Did You Know section of Webopedia..
Emails triggered by milestones, like anniversaries and birthdays, are fun to get -- who doesn't like to celebrate a special occasion? The beauty of anniversary emails, in particular, is that they don't require subscribers to input any extra data, and they can work for a variety of senders. Plus, the timeframe can be modified based on the business model.

#7 is very important. Narrowing down the target market to consumer specifics such as age, income or home value can help improve conversion rate from 2% to 50%. I see it far too often that companies just send random mailers to all addresses within a certain zip code. It’s totally ineffective and ends up being a waste of money. I recommend purchasing a list, it’s generally very cheap and greatly increases your chances of a successful direct mail advertising campaign.

Though the internet and digital technologies allow businesses to reach their existing clients and catch potential clients’ attention more easily, Chaffey reminds us that it is important that not all of your company’s efforts go into online or digital marketing alone. In order to be truly successful in spreading the word about your brand or gaining new customers, you must integrate your digital marketing techniques with traditional media such as print, TV ads or direct mail. This integration is called “E-marketing” and usually has a wider scope than traditional media or digital marketing alone. Since “E-marketing,” like “online marketing,” uses some form of digital technology to either create the content of a campaign or deliver it, the term is another that can be used in place of “digital marketing.”

This is a process described by Seth Godin known as permission marketing. The core concept of this idea is that you never market to someone that doesn’t want it, you first have to ask them for their permission. When someone signs up to your email not only do they become a warm lead but they give you their permission to send them offers and to market to them.
A mailing list archive is a collection of past messages from one or more electronic mailing lists. Such archives often include searching and indexing functionality. Many archives are directly associated with the mailing list, but some organizations, such as Gmane, collect archives from multiple mailing lists hosted at different organizations; thus, one message sent to one popular mailing list may end up in many different archives. Gmane had over 9,000 mailing list archives as of 16 January 2007. Some popular free software programs for collecting mailing list archives are Hypermail, MHonArc, and FUDforum.
Sometimes this just means cashing in on some old favors, other times it means we’ll share one of their lead magnets on our account too. Sometimes we’ll work out a deal where we’ll do five caption shoutouts of their account in return for them sharing just one of our lead magnets or something similar. If necessary, sometimes we’ll even pay money to have them share one of our promotional posts.
InfusionSoft is a fully functional CRM and marketing solution created for small and medium size businesses. Comparing it to MailChimp or AWeber is like comparing a Lamborghini to a VW Golf. It provides highly advanced features for list segmentation, lead scoring and marketing automation. On top of all that, you can integrate all of these features with your optin form using Infusionsoft Tags + OptinMonster.
Build your audience and manage your contact groups. Install our opt-in widget on your website to capture email addresses and automatically sync to contact lists in your account. Upload your own contact lists as either a CSV, TXT or XLS files. Our system will seamlessly integrate into your CRM acting as your second pair of eyes, filtering out unsubscribes and possible errors. https://s3.amazonaws.com/giveffect-assets/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/02133844/email-marketing-campaign.jpg
It also emphasises how digital marketing does not occur in isolation, but is most effective when it is integrated with other communications channels such as phone, direct mail or face-to-face. As we have said, the role of the Internet in supporting multi-channel marketing is another recurring theme in this book and chapters 5 and 6 in particular explain its role in supporting different customer communications channels and distribution channels.
An email blast is a single email message that is sent to a large group of recipients. Email blasts are no longer an email marketing best practice. Email marketers should segment their lists and send targeted messages to their subscribers. All email blasts need to follow the CAN-SPAM Act, include an unsubscribe link, and accurately identify the person or business that is deploying the email.
Ensure your email list is comprised of contacts whom have either opted in or whom you have a strong working relationship with. If you don’t have a list like this, focus on building one before you start sending anything out. Quality email address are more important than the quantity of them. If you’re not sure if you have a good list, check out our blog post: Answers to Frequently Asked Email List Questions.

Presentation is everything, or so they say. With this old adage in mind, we’ve compiled our best tips for anyone who wants to send emails that subscribers click into a handy email design guide. We cover each facet of design: content, templates, identity, color, images, layout, fonts, and calls to action. Design is as much science as it is art, and we take the guesswork out of what can seem like the most challenging part of sending good emails.

Find things that encourage people to engage. By tracking the statistics on each of your emails, you'll be able to develop concise reports about what works and what doesn't for your target audience. Take note of the specific days and times for your highest open and conversion rates. Test different tones and subject lines and see what causes your audience to read the blast. Stick to the things that your consumer tends to favor or enjoy and avoid repeating aspects of emails that do poorly according to the stats.
Electronic mailing list servers may be set to forward messages to subscribers of a particular mailing list either individually as they are received by the list server, or in digest form in which all messages received on a particular day by the list server are combined into one email that is sent once per day to subscribers. Some mailing lists allow individual subscribers to decide how they prefer to receive messages from the list server (individual or digest).[2]
Failures and successes in e-marketing have shown that when marketing goods online results in distribution, storing, or shipping and handling costs higher than the value of the goods, an exclusively online enterprise may be headed for a short life. In addition, e-marketers need to be aware of cultural pitfalls when designing e-commerce sites for foreign markets. https://subiz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/email-marketing-campaign.jpg
Back in the early days of email we were more worried about choosing the perfect username than we were about marketing. In fact I distinctly remember being more stressed over forwarding a chain email to five other people, because it’d somehow improve the chances of my high school crush declaring their passionate love for me, than I was about whatever newsletter found its way into my inbox.
Have a clear purpose for the blast. Email blasting customers or partners is not an arbitrary task. Each blast should have a concise purpose before you begin to draft it. Determine what you're trying to deliver and how you want the recipients to react to the email. The blast's purpose could be enticing customers to purchase something, updating employees on a new project or initiative, or a newsletter to recap the month's events. Once you determine the purpose of the blast, you can work on making the message more clear to your recipients.[1]
As mentioned before, the type of email campaign you send depends entirely on your goals with email. If you’re looking to drive direct sales then sending marketing offer and announcement campaigns are going to return the best results, however if you are simply looking to keep your existing customers up-to-date on the latest projects, products or developments at your company, then sending a regular newsletter is going to be the best way to achieve that.

If you create an email blast that asks your contacts to do something (like call you, fill out a form on your website, or take advantage of an offer), make sure you have that high up in the email. A good rule of thumb is that your call to action should appear right away, when someone opens your email. If someone has to scroll to find it, it’s in the wrong place. It’s the same philosophy as the old newspaper theory that the stories “above the fold” are those which get the most attention.

Find things that encourage people to engage. By tracking the statistics on each of your emails, you'll be able to develop concise reports about what works and what doesn't for your target audience. Take note of the specific days and times for your highest open and conversion rates. Test different tones and subject lines and see what causes your audience to read the blast. Stick to the things that your consumer tends to favor or enjoy and avoid repeating aspects of emails that do poorly according to the stats.